Rules For Writers: Chapter Three

Making global revisions; then revise sentences.

This chapter is mainly about after you finish writing a text, going back and revising or editing sentences, paragraphs, ideas or even your thesis. When you revise sentences, you focus on effectiveness; when you edit, you check for correctness. Going back and doing a global revision focuses on a couple main points of what you should look for. "Purpose and Audience" is used to make sure you are informing readers of your topic, entertaining them and answering any questions. "Focus" helps you make sure that your thesis is clear and that your ideas are not all scattered out and not making sense. Too many ideas all at once can be over-whelming to the reader and they wont be able to fully grasp the main concept of the paper. "Content" is the supporting material relevant and persuasive. Always have someone proofread your text because spell checkers and grammar checkers often miss a lot of things because they flag only the words not found in its dictionary.
Sometimes i'm self concsious about my writing and I don't usually like having people reading my work, but I really want to work on that because another persons perspective can really help me create a successful final draft. Laziness can get the best of me and I need to really focus on my spell check and grammar usage. I liked this chapter a lot because it's all about the area that I need the most work in and hopefully after reading this chapter, both you and I will see a change in my work!

Coming Home Again

Question: What is the importance of food in this reading?

I think that the importance of food in this reading is that its what bonded the son and mother together. They moved from Korea and he smoke more english then she did and was helping her learn and cook american cuisine. He wasn't just her prized child because he was her first child, it was because unlike his sister he was the one that was bonding and learning something new with his mom. He realized that she was sick and wanted to spend as much time as possible together with her which meant cooking even if he didn't necessarily enjoy it that much. Sometimes she would be rude about him messing up or not adding enough of an ingredient but he still always helped her. It was touching that he always worked hard on his cooking when at one point his mom was unable to eat any of the food because of her sickness.
I think that its special when a parent and child have something to bond them together. For me its always been sports because I am very athletic and my parents have been athletes at one point and are active in my sports and have even coached me at some point in my childhood. I think cooking is a great thing to bring two people together and this reading made me want to practice my cooking skills with my mom because im a horrible cook!

Rules For Writers: Chapter Two

In this chapter the main point the author wants the reader to understand is how to write a successful first draft. An initial draft is meant to focus your attention on ideas and organization, and to worry about word choice and sentence structure later on. To help you get started you can use diagrams, outlines, lists and free-writes. A thesis is what your entire essay is based about and draws the reader in. An effective thesis sentence is a central idea that requires supporting evidence. A helpful hint that if your thesis addresses a question or problem that intrigues you then it will most likely intrigue the reader too. By drafting the body of your essay it will develop support for your thesis.

Things from this chapter that I want to focus on incorporating into my work is really working on having a strong draft and outline. Im going to take the time to make all of the suggested ideas such as lists, diagrams, outlines and freewriting. I really liked how we turned in our essay rough draft and got feed back from our classmates before turning in our final copy, this was very helpful for me to get a point of view from my reader and fix any errors or add new things.

Essay 1 Rough Draft

Every child when they are born, instantly attach to one parent more then the other. For me, it was my dad. From the longest time I can remember all I ever wanted to do was be with my dad, do things just like him, and one day grow up to be just like him. I know that sounds sort of weird, a little girl wanting to grow up to be like a man. I didn’t want to be like my dad because he was a guy and I was a tomboy, I wanted to be like him because of who he was and how he presented himself as a husband, father, son, uncle, grandson, friend, and boss.

Let me take you back to the beginning. I was born in Oregon but I was too young to remember any of my life there. When I was three years old my family moved to Arizona. That’s where I was raised and all of my childhood memories are from. I have a twenty two year old sister that is my best friend, and a twin sister that couldn’t be any more different from me.  I played all the sports kids participate in when they are growing up. I was young, carefree and just loving every second of the beautiful life I lived. I had multiple sports game every weekend and my dad was always the loudest one on the sidelines cheering for my sisters and me. Besides sports game, family bike rides through the desert trails, and weekend trips up to our cabin I did everything with my dad. Home depot used to have what they call “Kids Day”. Every Sunday kids and their parents can come and in the Home Depot parking lot you build things with your parents. Such as: birdhouses, coat hangers, shoe racks, and other little nick knack wooden things. I lived for Sundays, I got to do tomboy things and I was with my favorite person in the world.

In 6^th grade my family and I moved here to California. Nobody wanted to leave, especially my mom but my dad had been offered a great job here and he had to do what was best for our family and take it. California was nothing like what I have ever experienced. I loved the desert and the heat so coming here was something very new to me. A year after we moved here my parents decided to get a divorce. It really didn’t come as a shock to my sisters, and me but I knew that the life that I had once loved was about to take a big turn for the worse. My dad moved out, I started seeing him less and less and arguing with him more and more. I was becoming a snobby teenager and shutting out who used to be the most important person in my life. My dad was an alcoholic, and out of the three sisters I always stood by his side and never let his decision and actions affect how I felt for him.

Every Wednesday night we would go out to dinner with my dad for the past five years, and every other weekend we were supposed to stay at his house. There was only one problem, his wife. All of us hated her and did not feel welcome in her house so we never chose to stay there on his weekends. My dad still drove me to all of my club tournaments for volleyball, and was always still there on the sidelines just as loud as he was when I was five years old. This past Christmas my dad’s life took a turn for the worst. He finally admitted to being an alcoholic and was admitted into a twelve-step program that was hopefully going to set him on the right path of getting back on track. I started seeing less and less of my dad, and I missed him more then I ever have.

Less then two months ago my dad passed away, completely unexpectedly. He wasn’t sick from what we had known. My life came to a complete stop. I was traumatized and I still am, the healing process of grief is nothing like anything I’ve ever felt before. I’ve had a lot of family members pass away in my life, but this was my dad. Not only was he my dad, he was my hero. My dad was the most loving and caring person I have ever met. He had a way of lighting up every room he walked into. People loved him and admired him. You would never know that my das was an alcoholic just by looking at him. He was the Vice-President of a huge company and had hundreds of employees that admired how hard of a worker he was, and the way he presented himself in the work environment. I’ve never met anyone funnier in my life and I never will.

I’ve gone through a lot, and I have had my times where I have been a problem child but my dad always stuck by my side just like I stuck by his. It was like we had this un-spoken deal that we would never judge each other for another’s mistake. He was my best friend and helped me get to where I am in my life now. I am an 18-year-old girl that just graduated high school; i am a full time student in college and playing volleyball. This picture represents more then I can put into a 2-3-page essay. This picture represents an accomplishment I made in my life by graduating high school. This is my last picture with my dad, and it is one I will never forget. 

Rules for Writers: Chapter One

In chapter one of Rules for Writers, the main idea is how to make a successful outline or plan that will shape whatever you are writing. Its always a good step to first start out by assessing the writing situation which is to include the key elements of the writing situation including your subject, the sources of information available to you, your purpose, your audience and constraints such as length. Always make sure that you understand what is being required of you in a assignment and dont just assume that all assignments are the same. When you are writing about a reading make sure that you annotate the text and take notes, this will help you remember important information and not have to go back through the whole reading once you finish. Making a diagram, writing down questions, any ideas as your driving, sitting, watching a movie or doing whatever will help you get a structured solid outline to your text. The more you prepare and plan, the more successful you shall be. It is most important that you have a strong thesis that is often the answer to a question you have posed, the resolution of a problem you have identified, or a statement that takes a position on a debatable topic.

I can take away many things from this chapter that will help me in my writing. When working on a text that   comes from a reading I will definately work hard to do a good job at annotating. I have always sort of struggled with writing my thesis, but I think that if i plan better it should get easier for me. I used to just wait until the night before to write essays and i would just crank them out in a hour or two, but a few times I actually did take the time to make a outline and write down any questions, thoughts or ideas I had and those of course were always my most successful essays so I will be sure to plan ahead. I will also try to focus more on making sure I am writing in a way that connects with my audience, I havent really been taught much about focusing on your audience but I am anxious to see how it helps my writing! I liked this chapter alot.

Superman and Me

Question: How is education a means to save one’s life?  How is Alexie attempting to save the life of the students he works with?  How did Alexie save his own life?


Answer: What I took away from this reading, and this question inparticular is that by being intelligent or more intelligent then you are expected to be, you can go far in life. If Indian children are not supposed to be these smart kids in the classroom, then Alexie is making a unexpected life for himself and opening up doors that not all are able to open up. Being smart takes you far in life, you can accomplish things and make a life for yourself. If Alexie wasn't really supposed or expected to have this wonderful successful life but does have that type of life then he is saving himself. 


He is trying to save the lives of other students that he works with by visiting the schools in the reservation school system and teaching creative writing skills to these Indian students. I think that Alexie believes that since he saved his own life, and chose to mold his life into what he wanted it to be like, that by helping other students he will hopefully get them on the right track and practicing the same things that he did as a school boy. Not all people are meant to be writers, brain surgeons,  or lawyers. We are all meant to be something. This doesn't mean that Alexie is teaching these kids how to be writers like himself, he is just teaching them the successful tools they needs to be whatever they want to be. Alexie saved his own life because he chose to. He was inspired by his dad to learn and grow as a person.